General Discussion

My oldest sister told me this….

On a family trip to DC in the mid 1960s,
Likely 1965,,,

a family station wagon odyssey, drove
to see WashDC, Gettysburg, Virginia, Williamsburg,

Well whole family, the big gang was in line to get tour of White House.
And THEN someone walked up to my father, talks to him for
a minute AND PRESTO …Dad tells us all let’s follow this person…

We are then taken all directly to the White House, walking past all the other
people in line, past the ‘gate’, even passing those just outside the White House entrance . Back then, When I was a kid then, never thought anything about it.

My oldest sister told me years later,,, we were somewhat ‘special’, and because of who Dad was, that once “they” realized who Dad was…we were escorted to the front of the lines.


In hindsight….
When a child you don’t pay that much attention to what is going on
Like you don’t pay attention to all the people who visited our house
from numerous countries, or pay attention to govt officials visiting at my parents
house, about the ONLY a time as a kid that gets our attention is when
some General from South Korea visits and is seated at our family dinner,
And all we kids can think of is the US soldier outside who drove the Korean
General.

To us kids,, The US soldier who is in a military uniform standing outside our house, he gets all our attention, the South Korean general is merely someone involved in business with Dad, wearing a business suit and tie, like all the businessmen.

It was nothing to us kids….someone Dad had over to our house..
Someone from Japan, from Jordon, from Thailand, from Germany,
India, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Turkey, etc….it was common….we just
didn’t pay that much attention at all.

Mom usually ‘fixed’ some gourmet meal for the ‘guests’,
We kids ‘knew’ when Dad’s own boss was there too, that the foreigner
business ‘person’ visiting our house MUST BE REALLY IMPORTANT

A lot of this never seemed much of anything UNTIL we kids were
lots older — then we realized very few people experienced what we did.